http://www.timeoutmumbai.net/client_coverstory/client_coverstory_details.asp?code=560

Anjuna dreams
Mayabhushan Nagvenkar takes the temperature in his home village.

We moved into Anjuna in the late 1970s. We were the first Hindu
household in Doxoxxir, a predominantly Catholic ward, until another
Hindu family moved in next door sometime later. Mutual suspicion
marked the first few years in the neighbourhood, which later gave way
to curiosity. Gradually as interaction increased, those around us
considered us good enough neighbours.Things were as normal as a quiet
neighbourhood would allow, until less than a decade ago there was a
renewed wave of collective doubt.

A family of foreigners had moved in on rent next door. (The word
"foreigner" in Anjuna, automatically implies white) The family
comprised a blonde haired toddler named Benjamin and his mum Anna, who
hailed from Denmark. Anna ran a stall at the Wednesday flea market in
Anjuna for most part of the season, while little Benjamin played in
the gravel all day wearing a muslin kurti, ate dal and rice and loved
cricket.

Some years ago, Benjamin rushed into our yard chasing a cricket ball
and bumped into my mother and apologised to her in fluent Konkani,
which stumped her. Next, he wanted her to play cricket with him.

While the term globalisation is somewhat recent coinage, the spirit of
this phenomenon has been in currency in Anjuna for decades now, its
roots going back several centuries.

Social historian Teresa Albuquerque, who belongs to Anjuna by way of
marriage – records in her book Anjuna: Profile of a Village in Goa
that maritime history knew the village of Anjuna and its ward Chapora
as Hanjamana and Shah pura, circa 1100 AD.

"Hanjamana was a prosperous Arab commercial settlement and an
important port along the west coast during medieval times,"
Albuquerque writes. "Hanjaman corresponds to Hanjuman – a merchant
guild."

In another book A Life Well Spent: A Biography of Pascoal de Mello,
Albuquerque notes:
 "The port of Chapora had for long been a vital maritime hub. It was
once a gateway to the holy city of Mecca and many ships were anchored,
repaired and even built there. To Chapora came Arab dhows loaded with
horses bound for the great market at Pernem, across the creek."

For centuries now, Anjuna has served as an interesting port of call
for merchants, adventurers, and soldiers among others. While in the
early days, it was the loosely strung fleets of Arab dhows, which
sailed across the Arabian Sea, the tide continues to bring travellers
to this shore. Perhaps, the village remained etched in the
consciousness of global travellers, much in the way the memory of a
journey made long ago throbs faintly within a wandering bull
elephant's head.

After the Arab dhows ceased to haul anchor in Anjuna due to numerous
geopolitical reasons, the village lived for a while like a bough
without a single blossom. It carried on as a sleepy fishing village,
until the 1960s saw it bloom once again with the coming of the flower
children.

Dominic Fernandes, who lives in Gaumvaddy, a ward located near the
Anjuna tinto, recalled his first brush with hippies in the late 1960s.
"They were walking by me in a group. They wore strange clothes and
sported strange hairstyles, which I later learnt, were modelled after
the Beatles. They were in love with this place. And we fell in love
with them, because of they money they brought along," Fernandes said,
not too fondly. But he does have fond memories of the Beatles hairdo,
which he too sported after the hippies.

Two score years later, Fernandes worries less about hippies. His major
concern is a mammoth housing project that's under construction in a
plot located right next to the Chapel of St John. A huge structure has
cast a dark shadow over the bust of Fr Agnelo, an illustrious
nineteenth-century priest who also hailed from Anjuna.

Fernandes is not the only one perturbed by an Anjuna that's crowding
far more quickly than imagined, with the springing up of one mega
housing project after another. There are some like Sarjano, a gnarled,
temperamental Italian chef and author. Sarjano lives in Anjuna and has
been running an Italian restaurant in Vagator for some years now. But
he thinks it's now time to pack his bags forever. Sarjano's on the
lookout for an elusive Eden, somewhere on the South African coast,
which was "discovered" some years ago by vagabonds of the sun and sea
like him, but whose location is a closely guarded secret. "It's
getting too crowded here," he said. "More and more people of my
generation don't come here anymore. There are other places springing
up like Laos or the beaches of Cambodia."

Sarjano, who's been coming to Anjuna for the last 30-odd years, does
not categorically say it, but drops hints that Anjuna-philes like him
are being crowded out. "Indians tourists from Mumbai, Pune and Delhi
are slowly replacing us foreigners," he said. "But there are other
places which offer cleaner beaches and a better living at a much
cheaper price than Anjuna."

Still, there are voices of optimism, like Greg Acuna. Acuna has been
living in Praiaswvaddo, Anjuna, for the last seven years and runs a
firm that makes animation software for children. It was a sight he saw
outside the infamously famous Curlies shack at Anjuna beach that
inspired him to conceive Earthlings, an animation and live action TV
series with the theme "One Planet, One People".

He describes the stretch of beach outside Curlies shack as a place
that epitomises the spirit of globalisation in Anjuna. "You have 20-25
children from different countries frolicking together by the sea," he
noted. "Most times they don't know even the language the kid next to
them speaks and yet they get along famously."

Source : Time Out Mumbai ISSUE 3 Friday, October 03, 2008

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